Assignment #7: Read the Book MI in the Elementary Classroom. Pick two activities from the back of the chapters. Implement two of these ideas into your class. Write a report of 250 (+ -) words describing your activity. Be sure to tell me. a. The age of the students and grade level: 10-11 year old 5th graders b. The subjects you teach: Homeroom teacher (math, language arts, UoI) c. How you implemented the activity: During our latest UoI (Unit of Inquiry) we created a fictional colony on the moon. The students all picked a hurtle in setting up a Mars colony to overcome (ie oxygen, transportation, shelter, food location). Because the students had just finished presenting these it was a great time to talk about some essential agreements in our colony. Many of the students worked on the essential agreements during the tick tack toe activity (below). After doing that, the students shared their essential agreements with the class. Then I presented them with the following objective and moral dilemma: (We used the one from the book p. 71 and I adapted it to fit my needs) Objective: To use critical and creative thinking to make decisions and to convince others of your opinion. Dilemma: After a few years of living in peace on our Mars colony a few children break into the food storage facility. One of the girls felt it was wrong and left. A man who lives nearby saw her leaving the scene. The man informed the authorities (police), who confronted the girl. To complicate the situation, the other children caused damage after the girl left. The authorities accused the girl and asked her who else was involved. What should she do? Should she inform the authorities about the other children who were with her?
After reading through this as a class we brainstormed a list of possible actions the girl could take. This is what they came up with:
Tell the police the truth
Don't say anything
Point the police in the right direction
Run away
Give the police some fake leads
Take the fall for your friends
Bribe the police
I did not discuss how I felt about any of these options nor did I let the students do so. I then had them put their heads down to vote. After voting it was the end of day one. Here is what the vote was:
Tell the police the truth 7
Don't say anything 0
Point the police in the right direction 2
Run away 2
Give the police some fake leads 4
Take the fall for your friends 2
Bribe the police 4
Beginning the next day I had students get with groups that had the same ideas as they did. They then talked about why they thought their solution was best. Then I had each group present their information. I picked two people after each group presented to ask rhetorical questions. I told students that if they had a change of heart and wanted to switch their opinion they may do so, but only if they e-mailed me that evening with which group they wanted to switch to and why. This was the end of day two. I got a few e-mails that evening. This is how it looked the next day (one student was absent).
Tell the police the truth 5
Don't say anything 0
Point the police in the right direction 3
Run away 3
Give the police some fake leads 3
Take the fall for your friends 2
Bribe the police 4
The last day students wrote the end of the story and presented it to class. d. How the children responded: In general the students love it. I have a student in my class who is quiet intelligent and has O.D.D. and A.D.H.D. Although it was wonderful to see him so passionate, he did have a lot of trouble controlling himself especially during the rhetorical questioning portion. He was in the group who chose to run away. Their arguments were very weak and silly. e. Will you do this again? Yes. but I may not do it again with this group of students because, like with any activity, it can only be done so many times before it looses its' novelty, but if an appropriate situation arises, I would even do it again with them. f. What will you do differently. I would have said that running was not an option because in a dome colony it really is not a viable option.
a. The age of the students and grade level: 10-11 year old 5th graders b. The subjects you teach: Homeroom teacher (math, language arts, UoI) c. How you implemented the activity: I did the novice/expert activity as a reflection of our UoI that we just finished (see description above). They were to write, draw, build, or act out what they learned during this unit. To get adequate progress, they had to show an understanding of how we would breath, eat, get around, get energy and have shelter in our Mars colony. The children had brought in boxes and other recycled things from home to build with. Because I had asked the students their preferences at the beginning of December, I used those to make the groups. I first put them into novice groups. I had three writing groups with 3-4 students in each group. I had one drawing group with four students in it. There was no building group and two acting groups with three students in each group. The students worked for less than 30 min. and were done.
The next day I had them work with the expert groups. There were four groups of builders with 3-4 students in each group and one group of drawers with four students in the group. There was suppose to be one group of actors, but they asked to do building instead as they felt that this knowledge lent itself more to building. Their request was granted. After an hour and a half all groups were still working. They begged to have more time the next day so that they could bring in things from home. They worked the next day for another half and hour and then presented to the class. d. How the children responded The students hated to novice groups and kept on asking for a rubric so they would know if they met adequate progress or not. I had the checklist of expectations on the board but they felt that was too general. The writers were done after ten minutes (though one of the groups was done in less than five and the two groups that took ten spent the majority of the time fighting over who had to do the actual writing) and were asking me if they could read silently while the others finished. The the drawing groups took a while longer but also spend a lot of time planning and arguing, in both of the acting groups one student took the lead and basically told the others what to do. It was very different the next day in the expert groups when the students where doing what they loved. Some of the builders brought in spray paint (and spray painted their cardboard red during lunch) and glass cake covers (for the dome). Others brought in legos and clay structures and people they had made a home. They had everything on the checklist completed and even checked in with the class "experts" to make sure they got everything right. The only group that was a bit of a disappointment was the drawing group. This was not because of lack of effort, but because they did not follow the instructions and they created a colony of their own which had very little to do with the scientific research done in class. e. Will you do this again? Some of it. I think that showing the students the difference between their novice and expert skills are important to do once. When I do this again, with the same group of students, I will leave out the novice portion of it and just have the students show off their strengths. f. What will you do differently. I would have left more time at the end to talk through the activity with the students as, because it was the second to the last day of school, we had very little time to reflect on it. I also would have been more insistent with the drawing group who got so far off task.
Assignment #6: Post a copy of your Think Tac Toe using a 3 X 3 table that is color coded. Black for Basic, Blue for mid range, Red for higher level thinking. Be sure to use Bloom’s Taxonomy to develop your TTT.
WRITING Write a paragraph summarizing what you’ve learned this unit (concepts, survival needs, adaptation)
ART Draw a picture that will compare and contrast life on Mars (new colony) and life on Earth (current)
INTERPERSONAL Meet up with someone you do not regularly work with and explain what your survival need is and how you will adapt it in Mars. Demonstrate good interpersonal communication skills remembering that these skills include body language, eye contact, gestures, and words.
WRITING Write a persuasive letter to your grandma asking her to come live in Mars (use the previously learned characteristics of persuasive writing and the structure of a letter)
INTERPERSONAL Create a set of essential agreements for the people in the colony to live by.
MATH Determine the probability of survival of your colony in Mars. Give evidence of how sustainable your solutions are for each survival need. Express these in fractions and percents.
MATH
Go to the website below to get the information of which gases compose the atmosphere in Mars. Get the percents that represents each gas in the atmosphere, turn them into fractions (lowest terms), and decimals. Finally create a Circle Graph showing this information (label and title).
ART Make a table-top or Xtranormal video that shows life in your colony in Mars.
WRITING Create a memory game with the vocabulary from this unit that you think will be helpful for next year’s students.
Assignment #5: Comment on possible advantages of having AlphaBet Syndrome. Why might nature have done this? Is there any genetic advantage to any of these special populations. As we have discussed in class, it is entirely possible that the increase in people who have AlphaBet Syndrome is an adaptation to the world around us. We are bombarded with an ever increase amount of stimuli on a daily basis. This can easily be observed with any teen. They often are watching T.V. while texting and checking their FaceBook page. Since infancy these children are very stimulated. Infants often play with toys which have bright lights, colors and sounds. These types of stimuli have not be as prevalent in past generations. This creates the need for people to adapt accordingly to keep up with the rapid flow of information that is sent to them. People with AlphaBet Syndrome may be more capable to do this that others. Their ADD or ADHD inable them travel from one idea to the next at a greater speed while their gifted-ness helps them to interpret the information they receive.
Because the world is becoming more and more fast paced with numerous stimuli occurring at the same time and many of the mundane tasks which human did before are becoming obsolete, the human race is in need of people who are creative problem solvers and who are quick on their feet. Although AlphaBet children often struggle in our outdated school systems, they have many of the most important skills to be successful in today's workforce.
Assignment #4: Cut and paste the Learning Matrix activity from page 3 on to your page and tell me which Special population you worked on.
Anne, Rocío, Cynthia, Maria Angela
Gifted and talented
Gifted students are not being serviced. Students who often have a higher than average IQs, often have high performance, good problem solving, are able to think critically, often widely read, abstract thinkers, often energetic, highly inquisitive, and sometimes have an “I’d rather do it myself”. Intellectual gifted-ness may be general or specific.
Learning challenges that many gifted children may face are boredom, stigmatization, becoming social outcasts, difficulty taking criticism, and collaborating with others.
Differentiation and independent project. Find out what they are passionate about and tap into that. Some parents ask in discussion pages if gifted or talented children should skip a grade, it is very controversial and does not fit easily into constraints of the typical school system. There is also the suggestion that school should rethink the way grades are formed.
Assignment #3: Tell me on your wiki page the name of the cartoon on the Cartoon Assignment on Page 2 that you worked on. Presentation Skills Made by Anne and Allison
Assignment #2: Because it only takes a generation for adaptations to be made, it is possible that learning differences (including autism and ADD) are adaptations to our ever-changing environment. Although it is likely that these conditions have been around long before we were able to put a name to them, most people feel they are more prevalent that they had been in the past. An example of this would be ADD. There are many adults who now say they have struggled with ADD their whole lives, but there is a even greater number of children who are diagnosed and each year the number seems to be growing.
If we compare the environment today’s children are in from before they are born we may be able to note some reasons as to way this may be happening. In the world today there are an increase number of stimuli. It is not uncommon for a baby to be surrounded by toys, which have bright lights, colors, and noises, while the T.V. or radio are on in the background. This type of overly-stimulated environment is in sharp contrast to the environments babies history had been raised in which was often one of few toys and other electronic stimuli and a lot of human contact (maybe strapped to his or her mother’s back for much of the day). This increase in stimulation continues through one life through Internet, T.V., radio, cell phones, video games, ect. Taking this evidence into consideration it could be possible that children with ADD are not really children with a “deficit,” but on the contrary are simply more evolved then the rest of us and therefore better about to deal with the stimuli we are bombarded with.
Assignment #1: Tell everyone your name: Anne Acosta What you teach: 5th Grade 3 things you would like to share with the class: 1 I am have an interpersonal learning style 2 I have two children 3 I am planning on spending all of the long break in Minnesota Write one short reflection. (Less than 250 words) Tell us (everyone can see your wiki page) one new thing that you learned about Multiple Intelligence / Learning Styles or differentiation. One new thing I learned is that in my classroom there are no writers, six actors, eleven builders, and four drawers. This surprised me a bit as I thought that a few of my students were writers but the majority of them had writing as their last choice. I also was surprised by how many builders I have in my class. This is especially considering to me as an actress because you stated in class that an actress teacher with a builder student can sometimes be disastrous. This just means that I will have to look at my lessons and my teachings practices more carefully and keep my talking to a minimum. This does help me to understand why I am less effective with my students this year that I have been in the past. I was pleased by how many of the students I knew well. I would have been able to pick both the high and the low for about 80% of my students. I feel that because I had never looked specifically for this information before, that it is pretty impressive. I have already organized this data and have talked to the students about how they can use it to their benefit to help them to make their summative tasks for their current UoI stronger. The students were pleased with this information and it was beneficial for many of them. The downside was that some of the groups then fought over who was going to have to write (as part of the project is written) because none of them wanted to write.
Assignment #7:
Read the Book MI in the Elementary Classroom. Pick two activities from the back of the chapters. Implement two of these ideas into your class. Write a report of 250 (+ -) words describing your activity. Be sure to tell me.
a. The age of the students and grade level: 10-11 year old 5th graders
b. The subjects you teach: Homeroom teacher (math, language arts, UoI)
c. How you implemented the activity: During our latest UoI (Unit of Inquiry) we created a fictional colony on the moon. The students all picked a hurtle in setting up a Mars colony to overcome (ie oxygen, transportation, shelter, food location). Because the students had just finished presenting these it was a great time to talk about some essential agreements in our colony. Many of the students worked on the essential agreements during the tick tack toe activity (below). After doing that, the students shared their essential agreements with the class. Then I presented them with the following objective and moral dilemma: (We used the one from the book p. 71 and I adapted it to fit my needs)
Objective: To use critical and creative thinking to make decisions and to convince others of your opinion.
Dilemma: After a few years of living in peace on our Mars colony a few children break into the food storage facility. One of the girls felt it was wrong and left. A man who lives nearby saw her leaving the scene. The man informed the authorities (police), who confronted the girl. To complicate the situation, the other children caused damage after the girl left. The authorities accused the girl and asked her who else was involved. What should she do? Should she inform the authorities about the other children who were with her?
After reading through this as a class we brainstormed a list of possible actions the girl could take. This is what they came up with:
- Tell the police the truth
- Don't say anything
- Point the police in the right direction
- Run away
- Give the police some fake leads
- Take the fall for your friends
- Bribe the police
I did not discuss how I felt about any of these options nor did I let the students do so. I then had them put their heads down to vote. After voting it was the end of day one. Here is what the vote was:- Tell the police the truth 7
- Don't say anything 0
- Point the police in the right direction 2
- Run away 2
- Give the police some fake leads 4
- Take the fall for your friends 2
- Bribe the police 4
Beginning the next day I had students get with groups that had the same ideas as they did. They then talked about why they thought their solution was best. Then I had each group present their information. I picked two people after each group presented to ask rhetorical questions. I told students that if they had a change of heart and wanted to switch their opinion they may do so, but only if they e-mailed me that evening with which group they wanted to switch to and why. This was the end of day two. I got a few e-mails that evening. This is how it looked the next day (one student was absent).- Tell the police the truth 5
- Don't say anything 0
- Point the police in the right direction 3
- Run away 3
- Give the police some fake leads 3
- Take the fall for your friends 2
- Bribe the police 4
The last day students wrote the end of the story and presented it to class.d. How the children responded: In general the students love it. I have a student in my class who is quiet intelligent and has O.D.D. and A.D.H.D. Although it was wonderful to see him so passionate, he did have a lot of trouble controlling himself especially during the rhetorical questioning portion. He was in the group who chose to run away. Their arguments were very weak and silly.
e. Will you do this again? Yes. but I may not do it again with this group of students because, like with any activity, it can only be done so many times before it looses its' novelty, but if an appropriate situation arises, I would even do it again with them.
f. What will you do differently. I would have said that running was not an option because in a dome colony it really is not a viable option.
a. The age of the students and grade level: 10-11 year old 5th graders
b. The subjects you teach: Homeroom teacher (math, language arts, UoI)
c. How you implemented the activity: I did the novice/expert activity as a reflection of our UoI that we just finished (see description above). They were to write, draw, build, or act out what they learned during this unit. To get adequate progress, they had to show an understanding of how we would breath, eat, get around, get energy and have shelter in our Mars colony. The children had brought in boxes and other recycled things from home to build with. Because I had asked the students their preferences at the beginning of December, I used those to make the groups. I first put them into novice groups. I had three writing groups with 3-4 students in each group. I had one drawing group with four students in it. There was no building group and two acting groups with three students in each group. The students worked for less than 30 min. and were done.
The next day I had them work with the expert groups. There were four groups of builders with 3-4 students in each group and one group of drawers with four students in the group. There was suppose to be one group of actors, but they asked to do building instead as they felt that this knowledge lent itself more to building. Their request was granted. After an hour and a half all groups were still working. They begged to have more time the next day so that they could bring in things from home. They worked the next day for another half and hour and then presented to the class.
d. How the children responded The students hated to novice groups and kept on asking for a rubric so they would know if they met adequate progress or not. I had the checklist of expectations on the board but they felt that was too general. The writers were done after ten minutes (though one of the groups was done in less than five and the two groups that took ten spent the majority of the time fighting over who had to do the actual writing) and were asking me if they could read silently while the others finished. The the drawing groups took a while longer but also spend a lot of time planning and arguing, in both of the acting groups one student took the lead and basically told the others what to do. It was very different the next day in the expert groups when the students where doing what they loved. Some of the builders brought in spray paint (and spray painted their cardboard red during lunch) and glass cake covers (for the dome). Others brought in legos and clay structures and people they had made a home. They had everything on the checklist completed and even checked in with the class "experts" to make sure they got everything right. The only group that was a bit of a disappointment was the drawing group. This was not because of lack of effort, but because they did not follow the instructions and they created a colony of their own which had very little to do with the scientific research done in class.
e. Will you do this again? Some of it. I think that showing the students the difference between their novice and expert skills are important to do once. When I do this again, with the same group of students, I will leave out the novice portion of it and just have the students show off their strengths.
f. What will you do differently. I would have left more time at the end to talk through the activity with the students as, because it was the second to the last day of school, we had very little time to reflect on it. I also would have been more insistent with the drawing group who got so far off task.
Assignment #6:
Post a copy of your Think Tac Toe using a 3 X 3 table that is color coded. Black for Basic, Blue for mid range, Red for higher level thinking. Be sure to use Bloom’s Taxonomy to develop your TTT.
Write a paragraph summarizing what you’ve learned this unit (concepts, survival needs, adaptation)
Draw a picture that will compare and contrast life on Mars (new colony) and life on Earth (current)
Meet up with someone you do not regularly work with and explain what your survival need is and how you will adapt it in Mars. Demonstrate good interpersonal communication skills remembering that these skills include body language, eye contact, gestures, and words.
Write a persuasive letter to your grandma asking her to come live in Mars (use the previously learned characteristics of persuasive writing and the structure of a letter)
Create a set of essential agreements for the people in the colony to live by.
Determine the probability of survival of your colony in Mars. Give evidence of how sustainable your solutions are for each survival need. Express these in fractions and percents.
Go to the website below to get the information of which gases compose the atmosphere in Mars. Get the percents that represents each gas in the atmosphere, turn them into fractions (lowest terms), and decimals. Finally create a Circle Graph showing this information (label and title).
Make a table-top or Xtranormal video that shows life in your colony in Mars.
Create a memory game with the vocabulary from this unit that you think will be helpful for next year’s students.
Assignment #5:
Comment on possible advantages of having AlphaBet Syndrome. Why might nature have done this? Is there any genetic advantage to any of these special populations.
As we have discussed in class, it is entirely possible that the increase in people who have AlphaBet Syndrome is an adaptation to the world around us. We are bombarded with an ever increase amount of stimuli on a daily basis. This can easily be observed with any teen. They often are watching T.V. while texting and checking their FaceBook page. Since infancy these children are very stimulated. Infants often play with toys which have bright lights, colors and sounds. These types of stimuli have not be as prevalent in past generations. This creates the need for people to adapt accordingly to keep up with the rapid flow of information that is sent to them. People with AlphaBet Syndrome may be more capable to do this that others. Their ADD or ADHD inable them travel from one idea to the next at a greater speed while their gifted-ness helps them to interpret the information they receive.
Because the world is becoming more and more fast paced with numerous stimuli occurring at the same time and many of the mundane tasks which human did before are becoming obsolete, the human race is in need of people who are creative problem solvers and who are quick on their feet. Although AlphaBet children often struggle in our outdated school systems, they have many of the most important skills to be successful in today's workforce.
Assignment #4:
Cut and paste the Learning Matrix activity from page 3 on to your page and tell me which Special population you worked on.
Assignment #3:
Tell me on your wiki page the name of the cartoon on the Cartoon Assignment on Page 2 that you worked on.
Presentation Skills
Made by Anne and Allison
Assignment #2:
Because it only takes a generation for adaptations to be made, it is possible that learning differences (including autism and ADD) are adaptations to our ever-changing environment. Although it is likely that these conditions have been around long before we were able to put a name to them, most people feel they are more prevalent that they had been in the past. An example of this would be ADD. There are many adults who now say they have struggled with ADD their whole lives, but there is a even greater number of children who are diagnosed and each year the number seems to be growing.
If we compare the environment today’s children are in from before they are born we may be able to note some reasons as to way this may be happening. In the world today there are an increase number of stimuli. It is not uncommon for a baby to be surrounded by toys, which have bright lights, colors, and noises, while the T.V. or radio are on in the background. This type of overly-stimulated environment is in sharp contrast to the environments babies history had been raised in which was often one of few toys and other electronic stimuli and a lot of human contact (maybe strapped to his or her mother’s back for much of the day). This increase in stimulation continues through one life through Internet, T.V., radio, cell phones, video games, ect. Taking this evidence into consideration it could be possible that children with ADD are not really children with a “deficit,” but on the contrary are simply more evolved then the rest of us and therefore better about to deal with the stimuli we are bombarded with.
Assignment #1:
Tell everyone your name: Anne Acosta
What you teach: 5th Grade
3 things you would like to share with the class:
1 I am have an interpersonal learning style
2 I have two children
3 I am planning on spending all of the long break in Minnesota
Write one short reflection. (Less than 250 words) Tell us (everyone can see your wiki page) one new thing that you learned about Multiple Intelligence / Learning Styles or differentiation.
One new thing I learned is that in my classroom there are no writers, six actors, eleven builders, and four drawers. This surprised me a bit as I thought that a few of my students were writers but the majority of them had writing as their last choice. I also was surprised by how many builders I have in my class. This is especially considering to me as an actress because you stated in class that an actress teacher with a builder student can sometimes be disastrous. This just means that I will have to look at my lessons and my teachings practices more carefully and keep my talking to a minimum. This does help me to understand why I am less effective with my students this year that I have been in the past.
I was pleased by how many of the students I knew well. I would have been able to pick both the high and the low for about 80% of my students. I feel that because I had never looked specifically for this information before, that it is pretty impressive.
I have already organized this data and have talked to the students about how they can use it to their benefit to help them to make their summative tasks for their current UoI stronger. The students were pleased with this information and it was beneficial for many of them. The downside was that some of the groups then fought over who was going to have to write (as part of the project is written) because none of them wanted to write.